- Democracy in this largest of all democratic nations seems to be working fine "at first glance"
- there's a lot that happens in the way we conduct our political life in between elections that is deeply disturbing
- Anna Hazare's fast-unto-death is a clear instance of misunderstood democracy...it's blackmail
Our democracy "working fine"??!!! Sure, we vote regularly, throw out parties in power, etc etc - but are these the only indicators of a fine working democracy? Criminals as lawmakers, dynasties in politics, corruption in legislatures - surely these could also be indicators of the "fineness" of our democracy.
Aren't these disturbing enough? Do we need to look at only those things that happen between elections to be disturbed?
Anna Hazare's fasting as blackmail - absolutely. And thank God for it. And it worked. For more than four decades, there has been a shortage of political will to combat corruption. On the contrary, first there was a tendency to turn a blind eye to it - witness that famous and witless request to 'Thoda kuch de do (Give him a little something)" in the case of Dharma Teja. During the Licence Raj, corruption was institutionalized. Now, of course, we have cabinet ministers in jail - not a proof of the fineness of our democracy, but more of the independence form political interference of our investigating agencies and the judiciary.
During the latest round of skirmishes between Anna and team and the Government, the reluctance of Government to do anything serious about tackling corruption had been totally apparent. If an attempt to show the will of crores of Indians, sick and disgusted and dismayed by corruption to an unresponsive Government is blackmail, so be it. Let's do it a lot more!!
